NOTE: This assignment is largely geared toward struggling students.
This assignment will help get you started responding meaningfully and argumentatively to an author's ideas and give you a helpful template into which you can shape your responses to the passage from American author Barbara Ehrenreich below. |
Writing Prompt (Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts for one-third of the total essay section score.)
The passage below is from The Worst Years of Our Lives by Barbara Ehrenreich. Ehrenreich is writing about life in the 1980s. Read the passage carefully and then write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Ehrenreich’s assertions about television. Support your argument with appropriate evidence. Only after many months of viewing did I begin to understand the force that has transformed the American people into root vegetables. If you watch TV for a very long time, day in, day out, you will begin to notice something eerie and unnatural about the world portrayed therein. I don’t mean that it is two-dimensional or lacks a well-developed critique of the capitalist consumer culture or something superficial like that. I mean something so deeply obvious that it’s almost scary: when you watch television, you will see people doing many things—chasing fast cars, drinking lite beer, shooting each other at close range, etc. But you will never see people watching television. Well, maybe for a second, before the phone rings or a brand-new, multiracial adopted child walks into the house. But never really watching, hour after hour, the way real people do. Way back in the beginning of the television era, this was not so strange, because real people actually did many of the things people do on TV, even if it was only bickering with their mothers-in-law about which toilet paper to buy. But modern people, i.e., couch potatoes, do nothing that is ever shown on television (because it is either dangerous or would involve getting up from the couch). And what they do do—watch television—is far too boring to be televised for more than a fraction of a second, not even by Andy Warhol,* bless his boredom-proof little heart. So why do we keep on watching? * Artist and filmmaker known for using repeated images and for making movies dealing with time, boredom, and repetition Copyright © 1991 by Barbara Ehrenreich. |
A Brief Word About Teaching Students Templates
Obviously, templates are not for everyone. Many students and teachers may think of them as "paint-by-numbers" composition or reject the inherently prescriptive setup of a template. That said, many students, especially those who have not yet done extensive academic reading may find these basic moves helpful.
Directions for Students
First Template: What Ehrenreich Says
SecondTemplate: What You Say
Third Template: Comment and Reflect
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In the foundational American document that is the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson essentially argues that all menare created equal, or in other words, that equality is inherent in birth, a fundamental part of our identity as humans. At a crucial point, Jefferson tries to persuade his readers that "all men are created equal" (Jefferson 24), suggesting that equality is as inherent to human beings as their souls, both given, in Jefferson's view, by a divine creator. Even though he does not necessarily say so directly, Jefferson assumes that his audience shares his belief in a divinity, shares a mutual belief in the value of equality, and shares a mutual definition of what "equality" means.
However, despite Jefferson's contention, he is fundamentally incorrect in stating that "all men are created equal" for one primary reason: the phrase excludes women explicitly and excluded all people of color in practice, More specifically, although Jefferson doubtlessly intended the word "men" to be read universally as a generic word meaning "human," he is mistaken in believing that the word itself -- and the laws of the U.S. that grew out of it -- would automatically include either women or people of color. For example, it was not until the 13th and 14th Amendments that men of color were allowed to vote at all--at least theoretically--and not until1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution that women were allowed to vote in a system in which "all men are created equal," a historical event which undermines Jefferson's argument of inherent equality because the delay in granting voting rights quite clearly demonstrates the U.S. government's unwillingness to abide by the spirit of Jefferson's words; instead, they abided only by the letter. Although critics might respond that Jefferson's declaration paved the way for a government that recognized women and people of color, despite their views, readers ultimately must maintain that Jefferson would have served all Americans better had he not presumed that his words were so inclusive. |